


Sleep

by aravenwood



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Game of Thrones References, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reading, Sleep Deprivation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 02:49:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11431608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aravenwood/pseuds/aravenwood
Summary: He doesn't have the right to sleep - after all, if he hadn't been passed out drunk then he could have helped Beth to find Hannah and maybe, just maybe, brought the two of them back safe and well.





	Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've been playing this game recently and started thinking about the butterfly effect - as you do at 11pm. What if the whole reason Beth and Hannah died was because Josh was asleep and didn't help Beth? Or because Sam warned Mike not to help find Hannah? I thought I'd explore one of these ideas a little.
> 
> I hope you like it!

Josh hasn’t slept since Hannah and Beth’s disappearances. He doesn’t have the right to sleep, not anymore – after all, if he hadn’t been passed out drunk then he could have helped Beth to find Hannah and maybe, just maybe, brought the two of them back safe and well. They wouldn’t be missing, his parents would still love him and he wouldn’t hate most of his friends.

That goddamn butterfly effect Hannah was always talking about.

He finds a book on it in her room. _A Sound of Thunder_ by Ray Bradbury - one of her favourites, if the broken spine and dog-eared pages are anything to go by. So he can feel closer to her, he reads it – he reads it over and over to get a better understanding of it. Even goes so far as to buy his own copy online so he can highlight and take notes like he did with _Frankenstein_ and _The Great Gatsby_ in high school. Well, maybe not _just_ like he did with those – there are no notes to Chris or drawings of a cock and balls.

He reads it rather than sleeping; keeping his mind active when is should be resting is difficult and a lot of the notes become jumbled and messy. So he buys another, and does the same with this one, except he tries to keep to studying this one in the daytime only, normally just after his morning caffeine fix and before his daily dose of meds. That’s the glory hour – the only hour in the day he can be considered totally lucid. Whatever that psych his parents hired is drugging him up with, it slows his thinking and leaves him unable to do much more than just sit there in his room, numb and dull.

The book brings him closer to his sister than he’s felt in years, so he searches Beth’s room for her favourite one. He thinks back to all the times he found her reading on the sofa, feet up on the table; tries to remember what book she read most. At a guess, he says _Of Mice and Men_ – the first time she read it, she was inconsolable for hours, and even after the tears had stopped, she couldn’t stop going over and over the last few pages with Josh there to hold her hand.

But it’s a different book he finds under her bed – _The Bell Jar_ by Sylvia Plath. Of course, he buys copies of both of them – well, it’s not like he has anything else to do with his time.

For the month following The Prank – that’s what he calls it now – he finds himself duplicating both of their bookshelves. His parents don’t mind the costs; a few books and a couple of sessions with a psychologist every week are a small price to pay to keep their traumatised son at bay. Because that’s what he is, what everyone keeps calling him – traumatised. He doesn’t _feel_ traumatised.

Maybe that’s why he invites Chris over – to at least make an attempt at being normal.

He’s in the middle of reading _The Lovely Bones_ – one of Beth’s – when he’s suddenly aware of another person in the room. He doesn’t look up, not when he’s at a good bit.

“You know, I think my mom read that. Heard her crying over it at 3am one time.” Chris slouches down on the other sofa, shucking his shoes off with his toes. His voice is quiet, unsure, like he thinks Josh is just going to spontaneously combust into a puddle of grief. Which, Josh realises, he can’t really blame him for – he hasn’t been sleeping, rather the only rest he gets is when he passes out from exhaustion only to wake up with a gasp and a breakdown. He looks like shit and he knows it.

He dog-ears his page and drops the book to the floor. “Hey, Cochise,” he smiles and goes to join Chris on the other sofa, the one that faces the TV head on rather than at a ninety degree angle that obscures the whole screen. They share an awkward one-armed hug that Josh almost doesn’t want to end.

“Jeez, man. You look like shit!” Chris points out with a frown. “When was the last time you slept?”

Josh rubs the back of his neck and keeps his gaze on the blank TV screen. “Who, me? Nah, you know me man – sleep is for the weak, the crazy and the dead,” he retorts with only a fraction of his usual cockiness – he just doesn’t have the energy to be totally back to normal. And anyway, if he acts like he’s totally, one hundred percent A-OK, that would probably be even more worrying than fifty percent Josh.

Chris chuckles nervously, but recovers his confidence before speaking. “Hey, you call me weak as much as you like, but nothing beats curling up in bed  after a long, hard day.”

“With an Ashley-shaped pillow?” Josh adds, nudging Chris playfully.

“Whatever, man. What’re we watching? I’ve been informed by a reliable source that you’re behind on _Game of Thrones_? Dude, it’s getting so good but I can’t convince Ash to watch it – I need someone to fangirl with!”

Josh shrugs. “Well of course I’m not just gonna take your word for it. Go on, then – you’ve been here so much you can work the TV better than I can.” He waves a hand in the general direction of the television, shooing Chris like an irritating servant from the nineteenth century. He wonders only briefly if _Game of Thrones_ is really suitable for someone who’s supposedly “traumatised”, but decides that it’s not and internally thanks Chris for not handling him with kid gloves.

An hour into their marathon, Josh finds himself drifting. He doesn’t like just sitting watching TV now – it doesn’t keep his mind as active as reading does and he’s afraid of falling asleep. He shifts in his seat and reaches for his water bottle, knocking into Chris and drawing his attention away from the screen.

“You okay, man? You can sleep if you want to,” Chris offers gently, pausing the TV and shifting so he’s facing Josh.

Josh grimaces and shakes his head. “No I can’t,” he whispers. “If I sleep then something will happen to you too.”

“What?”

He runs a hand down his face, noticing absently how much it’s trembling. “I’m just…I’m so _tired_ , Chris. But I can’t sleep because the last time I slept was when my sisters needed me the most. So now…I’m not taking any more chances. I _can’t_.” He breaks off with a hiccupping gasp. “I just don’t want to lose anyone else.”

Chris looks him up and down a few times, his jaw agape and his eyes both worried and afraid. “You’re not going to lose me, bud,” he reassures, squeezing Josh’s shoulder. Josh goes to pull away but changes his mind at the last minute; he leans closer instead. “Jesus, you really are tired, aren’t you?” Chris mumbles, wriggling until the two of them are sitting more comfortably; him sitting against the arm of the chair, twisted slightly so Josh can easily slump against his shoulder. The two of them have been best friends for years, but they’ve never been all that touchy.

Sometimes a change is nice, Josh acknowledges in his head.

“You can sleep while I’m here, bud. And you know why? Because I’m a big, strong -. You know what? That’s more Mike’s thing than mine. Screw it. You can sleep because you’re my best friend and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You’re safe, bud, you’re always safe while I’m around.”

Josh glances up and finds Chris staring at the opposite wall, channelling his inner daydreamer. Him talking so much is nice, reassuring almost. Not that he ever needs to know that.

“The other guys are worried about you too. Seriously, you should hear Mike; every time I see him he’s all ‘hey, how’s Josh?’ this and ‘when can we visit?’ that. He’s persistent, I’ll give him that much. And Matt, he…he’s pretty similar, but with more sports metaphors. God, half the time I’ve no clue what he’s saying… Did you know he came out with a golf one the other day? _Golf_! He probably thinks Tiger Woods is a place in South America…”

He keeps talking and talking and talking, and for once Josh really feels like he can sleep and nothing’s going to happen. But there’s a part of him that doesn’t _want_ to sleep – a part that wants to know what else Chris is going to come out with.

But god, he’s exhausted…

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
